Eternal Law
by Argentine Rose
Summary: If Gene thinks death means the end of his police career then he's very much mistaken. Another deceased top cop with a big coat and a nifty line in sarcasm has a mission for him - and a possible shot at that rarest of things, redemption.


**A/N: 1) If you haven't seen the finale of Ashes to Ashes (or, indeed, finished The Brick) then this will COMPLETELY ruin it for you. Don't say you haven't been warned.**

**2) A working knowledge of Les Miserables and Ashes to Ashes (and a familiarity with Sherlock Holmes) will be really, really helpful here – although hopefully if you aren't familiar with one you can still get something from the story. Even if you love them all, it's still probably crackfic!**

He had not expected that there would be so many stars.

But then police work was all about the unexpected. That was one of the first things they taught you at college. No two days are ever the same. Even a routine beat is never truly routine – once you fall under the misapprehension that it is you may as well stop showing up for work because that's when you get sloppy, get stale, get slow. You have to remember that people are unpredictable. Life is unpredictable.

Death, it transpired, was also unpredictable, both in the manner of its arrival and in its appearance. So very many stars, some far away in an unimaginable distance, glinting with chilly serenity, and others whizzing past at dizzying speed, as if he had strayed onto a motorway for fireflies. He looked down.

As it turned out, this was a mistake. There was nothing beneath him, nothing supporting him, nothing save the same disconcerting starry abyss which he had noticed above. The only thing holding him up was his belief in a surface able to do so – for not the first time that day he had thought himself on solid ground, and he had been wrong.

Immediately he began to plummet, like Alice down the rabbit warren.

Gene felt a sudden urge to cry like a child. But men don't cry. _Coppers_ don't cry.

Then again, _coppers_ don't get sent off to their shift by their mam, with spam sandwiches and an apple in a paper bag. _Coppers_ don't disobey orders, go haring off on their own and pursue a band of armed bastards without calling for back up. Well, not coppers worth their salt anyway. Most of all, what coppers are not meant to do is end the day with the side of their face blown off, dumped in a shallow grave before they even had a chance to finish their first shift. Or vote. Or make their first collar. Or have sex with a girl. Or go abroad. Or blow their first ever pay packet in a blaze of glory down the pub on a Saturday night.

This was certainly not the way it was meant to go.

All in all Gene did have good reason to cry. He wasn't going to though. _Wasn't bloody going to through gritted teeth._

What was he going to do though? That was a question that could do with an immediate answer. He was still plummeting through a void studded with light as bright and hard and false as rhinestones at an alarming rate. This was all wrong, all all wrong – the chaos of it made him angry, the disorientating randomness of it.

His anger warmed him, seemed to buoy him up – and not just figuratively. His descent was slowing. He came to a stop, floating amongst the stars the way he and his brother had used to do in the public swimming baths when they were kids.

The scene around him flickered, cut out, and reformed – like a television picture in bad weather. Only it was subtly different. What had been a shambles had become a firmament, the stars now moved in an orderly, regulated manner – beautiful, timeless and reassuring.

It was better, but he was still angry. Life – well, Death – just wasn't fair. There was so much he still wanted to do – not just the silly stuff like the shagging and the drinking and the playing the big man. The important stuff – he wanted to finally stand up to his dad, to make his mam proud, to help people, to be a good cop. To make a difference in a nasty, messed up world.

"I'm not 'aving this," Gene whispered, "I'm not fuckin' 'aving it!"


End file.
